What are OKRs? Definition with examples

OKRs are a method that helps you reflect on what your goals are, and allows you to think about what actions you need to take to achieve them, establishing metrics to know if these actions truly contribute to the objectives.

In this post, I want to teach you what OKRs are, why they are important, and show you an example along with an Excel template. As I always say in matters of productivity, remember that there are many tools and only you can know which ones are useful to you at any given time. I encourage you to try them out and see if they are useful to you.

What are OKRs?

The acronym OKR stands for Objective / Key Results, a goal management methodology defined by Andrew Grove, the former CEO of Intel. Later, Google began to use OKRs, which popularized them.

Andrew Groove believed that there were many people working hard but achieving very few results. Therefore, he pointed out that success does not consist of doing more, but in focusing on what is really important. This is something very easy to say and very difficult to apply, being an exercise that I try to apply both in my team and in this blog that I work on alone.

The OKR methodology can be used both professionally and personally:

• If you have a company, lead a team, or are a solopreneur... what do you want to achieve? What truly adds value?
• You can also apply it in your personal life, how do you want to live? What are your values or principles? For example, spending quality time with family, exercising, meditating...

Next, I explain how you can apply the OKR methodology in any field. A first summary of the work you must do is:

• Have a long-term (annual) ambitious and motivational goal that you can divide into more specific short-term (quarterly) goals.
• For each goal, establish metrics that will allow you to measure the results and know if you are moving in the right direction.
• Finally, it is important that you define some key actions that are important to achieve these goals.

Steps to define OKRs

The first step is to think about what you want to achieve, that is, what your goals are. This part requires a lot of reflection and if you have never done it before, it may be more complicated. But don't worry, the more you practice, the easier it will be to define what your objectives and priorities are.

One of the tools that usually help me is brainstorming, alone or including your team, and putting together everything that comes to mind. With this brainstorming, it will be easier to define a starting point against a blank sheet. Now you can work on these ideas, prioritizing and abstracting objectives, actions, and metrics to define the work.

Remember to think of the objectives as something "inspirational" a year away since they must be ambitious.

Once you have been able to define what your goal is within a year, you can divide it into quarters, and think about what more specific objectives will help you get closer to your overall goal, establishing metrics for each of them and actions that help you achieve it.

The good thing about having metrics and objectives is that you can try multiple paths that allow you to move these metrics. Here are two key ideas:

• Sometimes you won't know what to do and will have to try things out. Assess the risk and act quickly since the sooner you make mistakes, the sooner you will learn and be able to correct course if necessary.
• Not all work is defined by OKRs. This is a compass that orients and focuses you, but it does not exempt you from thinking, reflecting, and performing other tasks that are necessary.

Practical example

First, I want to give some examples of ambitious objectives that can help you establish your starting point:

• Growth of a project: revenue generation and user acquisition.
• Professional development: improving specific skills in a field of knowledge.
• Health and personal well-being: creating a healthier lifestyle through diet and exercise.
• Environmental sustainability: promoting practices that care for the environment.

These examples are very generic, but they can help you choose and specify your own. From these, you can define "Key Results" like: increase traffic to 10,000 visits a month, increase new users by 10%, perform 3h of sport a week... this part is more creative and there is no correct path, it's a matter of trying.